[Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a wife of a cotter and a physician. The lawsuit against physicians 1907].
The Norwegian poet and Nobel Prize laureate in literature Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910) lived for the last 35 years of his life on his estate Aulestad, near Lillehammer. The wife of a cottar at a nearby farm, a servant to his wife Karoline, fell ill in November 1906 with an incarcerated hernia and was sent to the local hospital by Bjørnson's physician. On arrival at the hospital the doctor in charge found her too ill to operate on. She died a few hours after an operation the next day of peritonitis and a gangrenous intestine. Bjørnson found this inexcusable. Because of a session with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, he left his son Erling to attack the hospital in a press article. This led to a lawsuit in which the doctor was accused of irresponsibility and incompetence. After several court sessions the case was dropped on 7 July 1907. This was probably the first case in Norway raised against doctors for irresponsible and incompetent treatment of a patient with death as the result.
Ranheim
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D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008318:Malpractice / Q000266:history* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D009664:Norway
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, husmannskonen og legene. Straffesak mot leger 1907.